MOUNT SINAI, NY – No one was more excited about the release of Harvoni, a potentially curative medication for the hepatitis C virus, than Dr. John Coctosan, a vascular surgeon at Mount Sinai hospital in New York City.
After catching a TV commercial for the drug in the OR lounge he was overheard declaring, “Did you hear about this new drug…. boy, my double-gloving days are over, in fact, I may not wear gloves at all!” Coctosan, who had previously been forced to abandon his practice of seeing “how far the blood will squirt.” during lower extremity bypass procedures at the behest of nursing administration and risk management, believed this new medical breakthrough would “green light” him splashing blood all over everybody without recourse.
He boasted to his colleagues, “No more trips to the Dean’s office for me!” alluding to a prior incident where he gave a pregnant third-year medical student a face full of blood during a femoral embolectomy. “Is she in labor?” he said, not comprehending why she left the room in tears.
“I don’t have to worry so much about handing back an unprotected needle to the scrub tech,” he said with excitement. “And the ‘ol game: Catch the Scalpel is back!”
“Now they’ll have nothing to complain about,” he uttered to a member of the housekeeping staff who recently had to purchase a special stepladder to clean the blood out of the ceiling vents. Susan, his long-time scrub tech and recent recipient of a liver transplant, was overheard muttering “perfect timing,” as she rubbed her chevron-shaped abdominal scar watching him waltz his way into the men’s locker room.
